Suppliers of wiring harnesses often perform a continuity check on each wiring harness at end of the manufacturing process. Continuity checks assure the presence of the circuit in the right cavity of the connector; however it does not provide any indication of the state of health of the wire harness.
Circuit testing of a wire harness is an important phase in the production process. Terminal crimp and wire condition, for example, are some of the key attributes of a wire harness that are not currently checked by the wiring supplier with the continuity tester.
Time-domain reflectometer (TDR) systems can be used to characterize and locate faults in conductive cables such as those used in a wiring harness. To test a wiring harness a signal is sent down a pair of wires and the reflection of this signal is evaluated to find a fault.
Because wiring harnesses have a wide variety of configurations (in terms of the number of wires/circuits they include and/or the number or types of connectors they employ), using TDR systems to test wiring harnesses can be impractical or cost prohibitive. For example, the TDR testing board upon which a switching network is implemented must be re-designed so that its compatible with the particular wiring harness being tested and its specific configuration. For instance, it may be necessary to re-design the switching network that is used so that the system can be used to test a different wiring harness configuration.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system and apparatus for testing a plurality of different types of wiring harnesses. It would be desirable if such systems and apparatus are flexible such that they can be easily adapted to accommodate a wide variety of wiring harnesses produced by different suppliers regardless of their configuration (size, number of wires, connector types, etc.), and can allow the electrical characteristics of those wiring harnesses to be accurately and reliably tested even when the particular configuration varies. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.